Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

She took off the wig and left it on the seat. Carefully she wiped the steering wheel, dashboard controls, and door handle to remove any prints. Then she left the car and took her cell phone out of her purse. She had never ended her call to Andrea.

“Still there?” she asked.

“I’m here.”

“I lost our friends and ditched the car.”

“Ditched the-”

“Not to worry. You’ll pick it up later. Right now, though, I need you to pick me up.”

“Where?”

She glanced at the nearest street signs and told Andrea the intersection. “You know where that is?”

“Not really.”

“There’s a Thomas Brothers map book in the Mazda’s glove compartment. I’ll be loitering on the street corner like a hooker, only better dressed.”

“What’s the plan, Abby? What are we doing?”

“It’ll all be clear soon enough. You’ve trusted me this far. Okay?”

There was a beat of hesitation. “Okay.”

“Don’t sweat it. You’re in good hands. The hard part is over.” She ended the call and hoped Andrea believed her.

There was no reason why she should. It was a lie, after all.

The hard part hadn’t even begun.

Tess was finishing off the recitation of her misdeeds, and enjoying it considerably less than her last visit to confession, when Michaelson’s secretary interrupted to say that Hauser was on the line. Michaelson took the call on the speakerphone.

“We’ve got a problem,” Hauser said. “One of my surveillance agents just called. Lowry has broken out of containment.” Michaelson uttered an expletive, which Hauser ignored. “She couldn’t have done it alone,” he went on. “She had to have help.”

Michaelson shot Tess a cold glance. “Your friend again?”

Tess frowned. “Stop calling her my friend.”

Michaelson asked Hauser where he was now. “At Sinclair’s condo in Westwood. She’s not here. Her Mazda Miata’s not in its assigned space.”

“She’s hooked up with Lowry,” Michaelson said. “For all we know, the two of them could be conspiring to kill Reynolds together. Or maybe Sinclair’s working with Reynolds to get Lowry.”

“Abby wouldn’t do anything like that,” Tess protested.

“How the hell do you know? She’s already killed Garrick. Now she’s pulled Lowry away from surveillance. The goddamned situation is out of control.”

Hauser’s voice crackled over the speaker. “McCallum, you’ve been in contact with her. You know her cell phone number?”

Tess recited it from memory.

“We can track her by her cell,” Hauser said. “She doesn’t even need to be using it. As long as the phone is turned on, it’ll send out periodic transmissions to check for signal availability.”

“We’ll need the cooperation of her cellular provider,” Michaelson said.

“Those outfits usually offer assistance to law enforcement voluntarily. We can use her number to find out which provider she subscribes to. Hopefully we can obtain whatever real-time info they’re getting.”

“How accurately can we track her?”

“Depends on the phone and the carrier. Mainly the phone. Most cell phones have GPS chips built in. With GPS we can pinpoint her to within five feet.”

“And if her phone doesn’t have a chip?”

“Then its position can be triangulated from the signals received by the three nearest cell towers. It’s just as fast, but not as precise. We can narrow down her location to a city block, maybe.”

Michaelson nodded at the speakerphone as if he were addressing Hauser face to face. “All right, get going on this.” The call ended, and Michaelson turned to Tess. “Looks like we’re done for now. You can go.”

“I want to stay. I want to be part of the takedown.”

“You have to be joking.”

“I know Abby. I can be helpful.”

“Yes, you’ve been nothing but helpful so far. Get lost, McCallum.”

“Richard, you can have me shitcanned later. Right now the only priority is to get Abby in lockup.”

“And how is keeping her best friend on the case going to facilitate that outcome?”

Tess stood. “God damn it. I’m not her best friend. If I were, would I be here now? I’m trying to fix things.”

“Too late.”

“I’m the only one who has any experience in dealing with Abby. I’ve already supplied her cell phone number, which you can bet is unlisted. You may need my help again.”

“The day I need your help, McCallum, is the day I give up my post. Now get out.”

Tess bit back a reply. She was moving for the door when Michaelson got another call from Hauser, again on speakerphone.

“We’ve ID’d her provider. They’re cooperating. Bad news is, her cell isn’t GPS-equipped. Good news is, they’ve got a signal, and they’re feeding us her location on a real-time basis.”

“Where is she?” Michaelson snapped.

“The 101 Freeway. Moving southeast out of the Valley into downtown

“And they can locate her to within a city block?”

“One or two blocks, yes. Hold on. They say she’s off the freeway now, going southwest on a surface street. Could be on Flower or Grand.”

“What the hell’s she doing downtown?”

“No clue.”

With extreme reluctance Michaelson looked at Tess. “Any idea why she’d be going there?”

Tess wished she had something brilliant to contribute, but all she could say was “No.”

“She have an office there, maybe?”

“As far as I know, she works out of her home. She’s not exactly the nine-to-five type.”

Michaelson asked Hauser if a search of the condo had turned up anything relating to a downtown address. Hauser said the search was ongoing. So far nothing of value had been found.

“Well, she must have something there. Records, computer disks-did you get into her PC?”

“Got a tech working on it now. I’m not too confident, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t think this woman is stupid enough to leave anything for us to find. She’s the kind who covers her tracks.”

“Sounds about right,” Tess said.

Michaelson told her to shut up. To Hauser he said, “We’ll have to BOLO her Miata.”

“There are a million of them in L.A. Hold on.” Hauser was gone briefly, then returned. “They tell me she’s stopped. Hasn’t moved in three minutes.”

“Where?”

“Central business district. Parameters are Flower Street and Hill Street to the north and south, Sixth Street and Fourth Street to the west and east.”

Michaelson paced. “What’s there? Bunch of office buildings, all closed for the night?”

“And the library, the Brayton Hotel, Pershing Square, a lot of smaller places. Plus she could be in one of the office towers, even if it is technically closed. Doing some sort of black bag work, maybe.”

“It’s a lot of territory to cover.” Michaelson rubbed his head. “Say we send in every available street agent. We comb the entire area, find her vehicle, and close in on her.”

“If she spots us first, she’ll take off.”

“We cordon off the perimeter so she can’t get away.”

“Cordon off downtown L.A.? We don’t have the manpower.”

“Get LAPD involved,” Michaelson yelled.

Hauser wasn’t budging. “It’ll take an hour just to work out the logistics.”

“I have an idea.” Tess spoke quietly, her calm voice drilling through the clutter. “Let me talk to her on the phone.”

Michaelson stared at her. “And say what, exactly?”

“I’ll tell her we need to meet. We’ve had meetings before. It shouldn’t tip her off.”

She expected Michaelson to dismiss the idea out of hand. It was a measure of his desperation that he did not. “You think,” he said slowly, “you can get her to agree to a rendezvous?”